One of the truest statements I know of is from Upton Sinclair, who said:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”

I have found that if something makes no sense whatsoever in terms of the assertions people make it is generally tied to this truth. Nowadays the best proof of this truism comes from any organization that has invested heavily in containing and commoditizing information that has started to become publicly AND FREELY available.

Nature just published an article about a group of scientific publishers, including some of the major ones, who have hired a PR consultant to try to squelch the growing “free science” information movement.

The essence of their argument? “Public access equals government censorship.”

Nature is wonderfully restrained in its commentary on this silliness, but the wonderful How the World Works blog by Andrew Leonard (firewalled for non-salon members, sadly) has a great quote that sums it up for me:

“…any publisher of scientific research who even begins to entertain the notion that free access to scientific information can or should be equated with government censorship should be mocked mercilessly in every publication, online or off, free or subscription required, evanescent as a blog or solid as a hard-copy Encyclopedia Britannica, from now until they beg forgiveness from every human on this planet for their disingenuous mendacity.”

Amen brutha.